I know, this will cause you to roll your eyes but go with me for a moment, PokemanGo could help us solve the REAL issue with prejudice. HELL, it all but compels you to ask questions and talk (yeah, out loud, with words) to complete strangers.
Case in point, I am walking through the park today here in North Central Jersey.
It's a park I frequent now that I have begun my quest to catch them all, I mean it's my destiny ... I digress. ... I am simultaneously .3 kilometers away from hatching a 10 kilometer egg and 10 percent away from a dead phone battery. Sigh, my mind is weighing whether I should press on and hatch the pokemon or admit defeat and head back to my car. Nevermind the fact that I am an American, so the last time I measured kilometers there was a grade depending on the outcome. Screw that noise, 10 k eggs give you powerhouse and rare pokemon ... didn't you read the earlier line about catching them all?
Anyway, as I pass the growing crowd of "millennials" and late"Gen Xers", who like me seem to have their heads buried in there phones, I am approached by another of the park's regular visitors. A commuter from the adjacent New Jersey Transit train station. "Are all these people playing Pokemon?"
He almost didn't stop to ask me, I could tell. On account of how his body stuttered as he passed me on the side walk. "Yeah!" I said, answering his question and realizing just how many people are nearby. There are probably 30 Pokeman "trainers" in this one general area, heads in phones. Add in the commuters and the late evening runners and this park is jumping.
"Why is it so popular" he asked? On his face a puzzlement that exposed the trueness of his question. "Everybody has their heads buried in their screens," he said, barely able to mask the befuddlement in his expression. "I work in the city and all day all I pass are people playing that game." You could just tell by his tone he wanted to now just what was the big idea with this game?
"But what you didn't see is the conversation that I just had with five other people. Different races, different ages, from different backgrounds, complete strangers. Exchanging info on where to find hard to find Pokemon."
See, what you find out early in the game is that you will go much farther much faster if you am actual words at one of the other phone zombies next to you. Pokemon has no time for strangers.
"One of the kids was saying there were a lot of a particular pokeman at Saddlebrook park." "Some of them were making a plan to go over there. They just met."
"They were talking to each other?," he asked.
"Words and everything," I said, trying to temper my sarcasm with the respect required when speaking to a stranger.
"I mean think about it, you stopped to talk me."
You see, during this summer, this hot summer of 2016, anytime a white man walking home from work stops to talk to a black man that he doesn't know to strike up a conversation in THESE United States, we should disect the idea of why.
The expression used to be "turn on your television and you will see why." Now those screens are much smaller and they fit in our pocket. Shootings, racial unrest, violence all over the globe, and the dreaded cloud of "economic uncertainty " all hang over our heads right now. We are all searching for a way to connect with one another, and as usual, the young people are showing us the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment